The Other Side of the Story
by Jocelyn Ralph
Summary: Same story as "Eeva" but from Axel's perspective third personly
1. Chapter 1

A dusk was missing, Xemnas had told him. Axel shrugged. "What do you want me to do about it?" he asked. What did he care if a dusk was missing?

"What you _will _do is bring it back to us," Xemnas said shortly. Axel knew he was growing annoyed with him.

"Fine," he said, his face dark, but a smirk upon it. "Where is it?"

"A small world called Twilight Town. It's location has been narrowed down to the premises of a mansion there."

A door of swirling darkness opened behind Axel. He turned away from Xemnas and walked through. The door swirled shut.

Another door opened in the courtyard of a mansion. It was dark out, and even darker shadows were cast on the lawn by the trees and other shrubbery surrounding the area. After some searching, he gained entrance through an open window on the side.

He could tell that someone lived here. There was no dust on anything. He rummaged through the place, but to no avail: the night drew on, and came to morning, and still the dusk was no where to be found. Yet he sensed it was here, somewhere. He opened a door to darkness. He would come back later, when it was dark again.

Well, he kept coming back, searching the mansion, night after night for a week, and still couldn't find the dusk. Each search brought him to a new room or two, maybe a few. The fifth night, he found the library.

It didn't occur to him that he was being loud. He didn't care. He just wanted to find the nobody and get Xemnas off his back. So Axel was thoroughly surprised when something hit him in the back of the head. He hissed and wheeled around to see a girl in a nightgown in the library doorway. In the blink of an eye, he had moved to pin her to the wall.

After the initial shock on her face disappeared, she began to struggle to escape his grip. "Let go of me!" she demanded, straining to see his face in the dark. Axel stepped back a little, letting her loose from the wall. Without even a single motion, he lit the lamps in the room.

"Where is it?" he asked, his eye narrowed and frowning.

She stared at him, uncomprehending. "Where is what? Who are you?" she asked in return, aquamarine eyes ablaze.

Axel stared at her a few moments, and crossed his arms. "The nobody you stole."

"Steal?" she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I didn't steal anything. It didn't have your name on it. Or anybody's, for that matter." She paused. "What _is_ your name" she asked him again.

"Axel," he said. "The nobody doesn't belong to me," he said, annoyed. He stepped closer to her again. "It belongs to the Organization, and they sent me to retrieve it."

She crossed her arms in turn. "It didn't have their name on it, either," she said stubbornly. He wanted to wipe the smirk from her face.

"Listen. If I don't get this nobody back, you know what will happen?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"The Organization will flood your little world with Heartless, who will take your hearts, as well as with nobodies who will take back the one you stole when it's over. Got it memorized?"

She was silent, as though thinking this over. "And if I give the nobody to you now, who's to say you won't do that anyway?"

Axel shrugged. It would most likely happen as she said. "No one."

He didn't expect her to laugh, but she did. "You are terrible at persuasion. You've given me little motivation to give it back." She paused and then sighed. "I'll strike you a deal," she continued. "I'll give back the nobody. . .when you've told me all you know of nobodies and heartless."

He regarded her warily. "I don't know. . ." Xemnas was getting impatient. If it took too much longer, Axel would get in trouble.

"Take it or leave it," she said. "I'm content to take my compromise or your 'hard way'. What'll it be?"

Axel paced, thinking, and then turned back to her, sighing loudly. "Fine," he said with a frown. He didn't like it, but else could he do?

She smiled then, flashing brilliant white teeth at him. "Good," she said, beaming with victory. She yawned. He had almost forgotten it was night. "Find somewhere to sleep. I'm going back to bed, since my rest was so _rudely_ interrupted." She turned on her heel and sauntered away.

He didn't really need to sleep, so Axel went through her library. He found her journal, and read what she thought she knew about the dusk she held captive somewhere in the labyrinthine mansion. When the sun finally rose, he found that he was hungry.

He searched, and eventually found a kitchen area, which he began to tear apart, looking for food. "_What _are you _doing_?" came an exasperated voice from behind him.

"You don't have any food," he said, not turning away from the cupboard he was searching.

"Yeah! I do," she huffed. He turned to see her open a door, where inside there was food piled. She waved her arm in front of the pantry, then crossed both in front of her, glaring at him. He shrugged and brushed past her, grabbed a box of cereal, and went to the counter. He picked up a bowl and served himself. "Are you always so noisy?" she asked, biting into an apple.

He shrugged in reply, and ate his cereal.

She mumbled something, he didn't hear what it was, and then said, "You're going to clean this up. And then we'll start in the library."

He frowned. "You're not going to help me?"

"You didn't need my help in making the mess, I don't see why you should need my help is cleaning it up," she said, all high-and-mighty.

Axel clenched his fist around the spoon he was using, but said nothing else.

She took his bowl to the sink when he was done eating, and he got started on cleaning up. Untrue to her word, she helped him. He guessed she was impatient to get started. It was just as well; the longer it took, the more annoyed the Organization would grow annoyed.

When that was all done, she lead him back to the library. He took the big chair at the desk while she went off to get something to write on, and made himself comfortable. Of course he knew it was her chair. When she came back and saw him, he grinned smugly at her. She pulled up a chair and sat down, pointedly ignoring his smirk.

So they talked – well, Axel talked mostly. He became quite annoyed because of the interruptions she made every five minutes. She took notes, making doodles and such, while he talked.

During lunch, she asked him about the Organization. Axel told her a little, but nothing really important. He was glad that she understood the secretive nature of Organization XIII.

When they continued in the library, she became even more annoying. Aside from asking questions, she argued. There were times when things, literally, got heated.

Then, when they stopped at sunset, things mellowed out. The girl, her name was Eeva, became much more endurable, even hospitable. Axel asked her why, and she explained that she lived alone and was never around people, and then apologized for her mood swings.

"Why do you live alone?" he asked her.

She sighed. "It's easy," she said looking at her dinner plate. "Because what I do is dangerous a lot of the time," she elaborated.

Axel arched an eyebrow, wondering if that were really true.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. "If it had been someone else from the Organization, would I still be alive right now? Or would I be a heartless?"

Axel shrugged, but saw her point. "It depends on who."

She nodded satisfactorily. "You don't know, how could I know? I took a risk with the nobody. That's why I live alone," she said heavily, as if she didn't like it but accepted the way things were.

The rest of the meal was spent in silence. When she was finished, Eeva rose. "I'm tired," she rinsed her plate in the sink, and walked to the room's exit. "Good night, Axel."

He didn't reply.


	2. Chapter 2

Axel was called to the World That Never Was. Saïx was waiting on the other side of the door of darkness when Axel stepped through.

"Where is the dusk?" he asked.

"I'm still looking for it," Axel lied smoothly. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie. . .

Saïx frowned deeply. "How hard is it find one single dusk?"

Axel shrugged. "It's a big mansion. Whoever lives there must be moving it around, otherwise I would have it by now."

"Keep looking then. In the meantime, we've located Roxas."

Axel repressed a smirk, and instead raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

"An alternate Twilight Town," Saïx answered. "It overlaps the real one. Since you're there anyway, you will bring Roxas back to us."

Axel nodded. "I will." He'd try, at least.


	3. Conclusion

Axel and Eeva worked together for another few days. He found he had a little more patience for her than he had before. He left during the night, and went to the alternate Twilight Town in search of Roxas. He found that night time in the real Twilight Town was day time in the alternate one. Roxas wasn't hard to find. Getting him alone was more difficult. Once he did, he found that Roxas didn't know him.

Unfortunately, it had come to a fight. Roxas refused to come with him. But during the fight, Axel sensed something wrong in the real Twilight Town. Fortunately, that twit Ansem interfered, and Axel disappeared into a door of darkness.

On the other side, he found Eeva, cornered by a shadowy figure. "Saïx, what are you doing?" Axel asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Ahh, Axel, there you are. The Organization was beginning to worry about you," Saïx said in a silky tone.

"I'm touched," Axel said. "If you're here about the nobody, it's taken care of."

Saïx straightened. "Really? The Organization doesn't seem to think so. If it's not in our hands, it's not taken care of."

"You're Organization is not much for patience, is it?" Eeva said. "I told you, you can have it back when I'm done with it."

Axel saw that Saïx held a blade to Eeva's throat, and was pressing it harder against her. If Saïx was about to say something, he didn't get a chance, because Axel grabbed Saïx's arm in a lighting-fast movement. "What do a few days matter to the Organization if we get the nobody back in the end?" he asked.

Saïx's eyes narrowed. He jerked his hand away from my throat, and out of Axel's grip. "Very well," he said. "You have three days," he said. Another portal of darkness appeared, and he disappeared into it.

Neither Axel nor Eeva moved for moments. Then Eeva sat up on the bed, her hand going to her throat. She winced. Axel knelt in front of her and put his hand on her throat. "Are you okay?"

She nodded.

"You're bleeding," he pointed out.

"I _have _bled before," she said tartly. "Are all the people in your Organization so charming?"

He smirked. "Generally. But we in the Organization aren't exactly what you call people," he said.

He saw the question in her eyes, but could tell she was too lightheaded to ask. The cut was leaking blood through his fingers and dripping down her neck. "Could you get me a towel?" she asked. "There's one in my bathroom. . ."

He nodded and retrieved it. She reached out for it, but he kept it in his hand and pressed the cloth, gently, on the cut. Stubbornly, her hand came up to grab the cloth, but instead grabbed his hand. She seemed flustered, which puzzled him. She tried again to take the towel from him, but his hand was wrapped completely around it. "I can do it," she huffed harshly.

He frowned, and then shrugged and placed the towel in her hand. He stood and walked toward the door, his business with Roxas wasn't finished.

He heard her stand and follow him. "What did you mean when you said the Organization aren't 'people?'"

He turned to face her, a smirk on his face. "We're nobodies."

He knew she wasn't expecting that from the shock on her face. As the realization was dawning on her, so, he could see, was a new perspective of him. Her eyes widened, as though with fear.

He didn't like that, and stepped toward her, his face darkening. "You're afraid of me?" She was right to be, but didn't like that she was.

"No," she said slowly, as though cautious.

He stepped closer. "Then what?"

She bit her lip. "I'm unsure of you."

Again, he took another step toward her, and she backed away this time. "What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means?" she spat. "You tell me _now_ that you and the others you work with are Nobodies. So what am I supposed to think?"

He backed her into her dresser. "Nothing."

"Impossible," she said with irony, her lips twitching to keep from smiling. "I'm a scientist, remember? All I ever do is think."

He stared at her, his face and eyes devoid of expression; but the rest of him revealed otherwise. Heat radiated from his black cloak. He watched Eeva, her nervousness and uncertainty growing by the second.

She sought escape by reaching her arm out to the dresser's side, but he grabbed her wrist, and caught the other one she she tried again. He knew he should do something, but couldn't fathom what it was.

So when her mouth was suddenly on his, he started. After the initial surprise, though, he quickly recovered. He released her wrists to grab her waist, and pulled her closer. Her lips broke away from his long enough for her to inhale sharply in pleasant surprise as the heat coming off of him intensified.

Even if he had forgotten for a moment, he knew exactly what to do from that point on. The last days went as they had before, and the nights that followed were passionate.

He did leave, from time to time to search for Roxas. He found him again, was able to corner him in a back alley. Saïx had given him orders from Xemnas to either bring Roxas in, or eliminate him. He'd almost had Roxas, but Ansem, again, put a halt to things, literally. Axel was forced to leave, because the next thing he knew, Roxas was gone.

Then came the last day with Eeva.

They went through he information fast, and Axel easily relinquished the last of his knowledge in three days. At least, the knowledge he was allowed to bequeath to her.

He could tell that Eeva was unhappy that he was leaving, and he couldn't fully understand why, and didn't try to. He was very preoccupied, his mind was elsewhere. Roxas had been returned to Sora, and only existed now as part of Sora. He told Eeva a little about them, but again, could only say so much.

The day was over early, since Axel had had little left to tell her. Eeva had put on a brave face, and didn't try to delay his leaving. She left to retrieve the dusk, and returned it to him. He sent it back to the World that Never Was, and opened a portal behind himself.

Though she tried to look brave, her face was wet with tears. He reached out a gloved hand and touched her cheek, then turned and disappeared into the darkness, knowing he'd probably never see her again.


End file.
